White Sulphur Springs, W. Virginia (August 26, 1918 -February 24, 2009) age 101 yrs

Creola Katherine Johnson was an African American mathematician. Her calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and following U.S. crewed spaceflights.  Mrs. Johnson dedicated 33 years to NASA’s Flight Research Division. This was the office from which the American space program sprang. For decades afterward, almost no one knew her name. Mrs. Johnson was one of several hundred rigorously educated women. They were supremely capable yet largely unheralded. Well before the modern feminist movement, these women worked as NASA mathematicians. The stories of three of these women were portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures”. Johnson was one of them. Her colleagues, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, were also featured.